Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE

K. Scarlett Kingsley, "Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE "Herodotus' Histories was composed well before the genre of Greek historiography emerged as a distinct narrative enterprise. This book explores it within its fifth-century context alongside the extant fragments of Presocratic treatises as well as philosophizing tragedy and comedy. It argues for the Histories' competitive engagement with contemporary intellectual culture and demonstrates its ambition as an experimental prose work, tracing its responses to key debates on relativism, human nature, and epistemology. In addition to expanding the intellectual milieu of which the Histories is a part and restoring its place in Presocratic thought, K. Scarlett Kingsley elucidates fourth-century philosophy's subsequent engagement with the work. In doing so, she contributes to a revision of the sharp separation between the ancient genres of philosophy and history. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title page 5 Imprints page 6 Dedication 7 Contents 9 Acknowledgments 10 Note on Texts and Translations 12 List of Abbreviations 13 Chapter 1 Introduction: Transtextual Histories: History, Philosophy, and Intellectual Culture 15 A Splendid Isolation? Historie, History, and Philosophy 25 Conclusion: Clio, Love of Wisdom 45 Chapter 2 Relativism, King of All 52 The Nomological Marketplace: Nomos and Relativism in the Histories 62 One-Man Rule and Decoupling Nomos from Dike 69 The Project of Empire and Justice 89 Nomos and Imperialism 93 Conclusion 103 Chapter 3 The Pull of Tradition: Egoism and Persian Revolution 106 Fomenting Revolution in Persia: Darius and Egoism 106 Intellectual Culture and the Profit Motive 115 Egoism and Political Participation 122 Reading the Histories in the Cyropaedia: Xenophon and the Persian Profit Motive 127 Conclusion 129 Chapter 4 History peri physeos 131 Early Greek physis 132 Herodotus' peri physeos 135 Conclusion 152 Chapter 5 Physis on the Battlefield 155 Surpassing physis 156 Physis and the Stronger 175 Conclusion 179 Chapter 6 Historical Inquiry and Presocratic Epistemology 181 The Obstacles to Truth 183 Problematizing Truth Claims in the Histories 188 The Obligation to Truth and What-Is 193 The Limits of Human Understanding 200 Conclusion 203 Chapter 7 Herodotean Philosophy 204 Reading Relativism in the Histories: Allusion and the Dissoi Logoi 204 The Histories and Intellectual Culture 217 Appendix 1 Tolerance or Relativism? 221 Appendix 2 ''Strong'' and ''Weak'' Relativism 225 Appendix 3 Knowledge and the Herodotean Narrator 231 References 235 General Index 261 Index Locorum 265